Ngorongoro Conservation Area

It’s home to the vast, volcanic Ngorongoro Crater and “big 5” game (elephant, lion, leopard, buffalo, rhino). Huge herds of wildebeests and zebras traverse its plains during their annual migration. Livestock belonging to the semi-nomadic Maasai tribe graze alongside wild animals.

Ngorongoro Conservation Area
The Ngorongoro Conservation Area is a protected area and UNESCO World Heritage Site located in the Ngorongoro region, 180 km west of Arusha, in the Arusha district, in the Crater Uplands geological zone of northern Tanzania. The site is named after the Ngorongoro Crater, a large regional volcanic caldera.

ABOUT NCA
Nationally protected area in the Arusha region of northern Tanzania, southeast of Serengeti National Park. It covers an area of 8300 km², spans the Eastern Rift Valley in East Africa and includes a wide range of habitats and landscapes, including grasslands, savannah forests, woodlands, mountains, volcanic craters, lakes, rivers and wetlands. The Ngorongoro Crater, one of the world’s largest intact calderas, is the park’s main attraction. There are also important archaeological sites, Olduvai Gorge and Laetolilla, where humanoid remains dating back 2.1 million and 3.6 million years respectively have been found.

The major volcanic formations in the region, such as Ngorongoro Crater, Olmoti and Empakai volcanoes, were formed between 20 and 2 million years ago. Empakai Crater is famous for its deep soda lake, which occupies almost half of the caldera floor.

The Ngorongoro Conservation Area is home to the largest herds of ungulates in the world: wildebeest, plains zebra, Thomson’s and Grant’s gazelles. Predators include lions, spotted hyenas, leopards and cheetahs. There is also the endangered black rhino and the African hunting dog. The 400 bird species in the area include the pink flamingo, silver rhino, magnificent thrush, bronze sunbird and taiga bird.

In 1951 the area was included in the Serengeti National Park, but in 1959 it was designated the Ngorongoro Game Reserve. In 1979, the area was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Although the area is closed to agriculture, 25-40,000 Maasai graze their cattle here. In the second half of the 20th century, concerns were raised that the ecosystem was being damaged by overgrazing and tourism, and that populations of black rhinos, leopards and elephants were declining due to poaching.